Three
by ParkerAlexis88
Summary: Two cases drove our detective to hell and back. One passed down to her from her parents. The other-let's just say that she was up to her eyeballs in it. So when the third case came along-she could finally find the ending to her story. Their story.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Don't own_

_Revised: 1/26/13_

Richard Castle.

Katherine Beckett.

Kevin Ryan.

Javier Esposito.

Dr. Lanie Parish.

Victoria Gates.

Roy Montgomery.

Detective Al Rogers stared at the names on the board. She twisted her hands together. Castle. Beckett. Esposito. Ryan. Parish. Gates. Montgomery. Detective Rogers jumped at the ring of a fellow officer's desk phone. She bit her lip and reached for her forgotten cup of coffee at her side. The detective took a slip.

Blah. It was cold.

The dark headed, slim, Detective Rogers turned away from the board, setting aside her coffee. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she took comfort in the familiar sounds of the squad room. Suspects being questions, phones ringing, people shouting, papers being shuffled from desk to desk, Rogers pushed away the negative emotions rolling through her mind.

She could do this. She could work this case. She could finish what others had started. She could win.

Detective Rogers opened her eyes, released her breath, and turned back to face the board.

Montgomery. Gates. Parish. Ryan. Esposito. Beckett. Castle.

Her past.

Rogers stole a glance at her partners in crime. Detective Frank Patterson and Detective Hank Willis were two of the few people that Rogers trusted with her life. Patterson was a blonde, blue eyed All-American boy. Willis, the younger of the two, was dark where Patterson was light. The two men shared similar build and height.

Rogers knew that they would back her play; Rogers had proven herself as leader, and as long as she could do so, Patterson and Willis would follow. The three of them had grouped their desks together in a corner of the room.

Rolling her shoulders, Rogers spoke. Willis twisted in her chair to face her, several sheets of paper held loosely in his hands. Patterson had been openly watching her for the past twenty minutes.

"Patterson, go pick up Beckett. She should be crawling her way out of this bar." She paused to turn to her desk and moved papers around until she found the one that she was looking for. "Here you go. The address. Pick her up and get her sober. Willis, go with him. And beware, Beckett was one of us." Patterson took the paper from her.

Rogers swallowed her reaction away. One down. Six to go. She glanced at her feet and took a deep breath. Her eyes met Patterson's when she looked back up.

"Yes boss." Willis careless tossed his papers on his desk and stood to gather his things. Patterson followed slowly.

"Everything okay boss?" He asked never breaking eye contact. Rogers cursed the fact that he knew her so well.

"I'll be fine, Frankie. Go get Beckett." Rogers turned back to the board, listening to Willis move away and Patterson move closer.

"Tell me about it later?"

Rogers nodded wordlessly. She couldn't face him his big brown worried filled eyes. She didn't have handle on her emotions; he would have an arm full of sobbing woman if he kept looking like that. She couldn't tell him now. Everything was too fresh.

"Call me okay? If something comes up, Allie?"

Damn him.

Rogers looked up and nodded. Only if they weren't in the middle of the squad room; she could have used on of his hugs. It was just one of the numbers of things that she loved about the man.

Patterson frowned, nodded, and moved off. Rogers sighed watching him go. She was going to get it later.

She turned back to the Murder Board.

Old habits die hard.

Rogers knew the location of three of her suspects. She also knew that two of them could not have done it. One of them was speaking beyond the grave. Two of them would never talk to anyone about the case. Including someone that was that the center of the whole thing, like herself.

"Rogers? Anything new about the case?"

She was not surprised to hear her captain's voice. Captain Aaron Edwards was in his fifties, going bald, and muscular. He still could out run most of the detectives in his precinct.

"Yeah." She paused to collect stack of file folders off her desk. "There is something new about the case." Rogers turned and grabbed another file off Patterson's desk. "I'll meet you in your office, Captain." She called over her shoulder.

Rogers didn't need to hear the reply she knew that he would be waiting for her. She glanced at the board one more time, taking comfort this time from the names and pictures on it. She spun on her heel, nearly running into a couple of uniforms wrestling a man with long dirty blonde hair to the floor. He looked to be somewhere in this late forties to early fifties.

"Get off me!" The man shouted fighting tooth and nail.

She stepped around them, throwing an apologetic smile at the uniforms. Crossing the distance to Edwards' open office door, Rogers shuffled the folders around a bit getting them in order.

"I need to talk to the Captain!"

Rogers glanced over at the uniforms and the man, shaking her head. Two more uniforms and a detective had joined the fight. It was probably some bum that thought he had important intel to sell.

Edwards' voice pulled her away from the struggle man and the uniforms. Rogers entered the office, completely missing the fact that the blonde haired man had sudden stopped fighting.

"Captain." Rogers closed to the office door after she entered to muffle the man's screams.

Edwards threw his pen down on his desk and rubbed his head.

"Sit." He gestured to the chair across from him. Rogers sat and offered him her stack of file folders. "What do you have?"

"I would like permission to open a couple of old cases. They are connected to the Parish Homicide that Patterson, Willis, and I are currently working on." Rogers said as Edwards took the folders from her. "Patterson and Willis are out right now picking up a suspect." She added as flipped open the top file.

"A murder that happened over twenty years ago is connected to your case, Rogers?" Edwards pushed the file away and opened the next one in the stack. "And missing persons report for a Detective Kevin Ryan?" He set that file a side and opened the next one. "The Castle case?" Edwards looked up at his Detective eyebrows raised. "You better start explaining, Detective."

"Yes sir." Rogers took a deep breath, willing her emotions away.

Edwards eyed her. "Well, come on Rogers, out with it."

"Over twenty years ago, a lawyer was stabbed to death in an alley." Rogers pointed at the first file. "Johanna Beckett was killed because she found out the secrets of a powerful group of people. Ten years later, Ms. Beckett's daughter, Katherine, begin to look into the case."

"Cut to the chase."

"Parish worked with Beckett. Who worked with Ryan. They and another man, Esposito were a team of detectives that Richard Castle shadowed for several years about ten years ago. Parish was a M.E that worked with them for several cases. Beckett was actually married to Castle for a few years." Rogers finished.

Edwards signed and looked through the files on his desk.

"Okay. I'll bite. Tell me how you put together the cases?"

Rogers closed her eyes and sighed. "Sir, understand what I'm about to tell you goes against everything that she taught me?"

"Who's "she", Detective?"

"Victoria Gates." Rogers ignored Edwards' reaction to his mentor's name. The former Captain had been forced into retirement soon after the Castle Murders. Gates had been likely that she hadn't been prosecuted for her part in the aftermath.

"Detective Rogers." Edwards said sharply, getting to his feet. "That woman-"

Rogers opened her eyes and made eye contact with the Captain. "Taught me everything I know about Law Enforcement, Captain. You can check with Gates, Captain. She'll back me up with everything that I'm telling you."

Edwards shook his head and sat back down. "Rogers…"

Rogers switched gears. "What do you know about the Castle Murders?"

"Big shot author, Richard Castle, attacked his wife, daughter, and mother. The mother died of her injuries but the wife lived. They never did find the daughter's body." Edwards rubbed his bald head again. "Found enough evidence at the scene that the ME included that the girl was probably dead. Blood everywhere."

Rogers bit her lip. "What if, the author was framed? What if the author was prepared for the worst, new IDs, money, a new life? And the daughter was the only one that made it out?"

Edwards threw his hands in the air. Rogers twisted hers in her lap. "And now you're talking in riddles, Detective. The daughter lost over half of her blood volume. There was no way that she could have survived that."

"And what about the aftermath?

"The team of detectives was disbanded and Gates lost her job. Castle went to jail. Ryan disappeared. Esposito went back to the army…Beckett. Oh shit."

Rogers breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't going to have to play all of cards this time. She could keep her trump for now. Edwards went through each folder for several seconds before closing each one. He stacked the folders up and handed them back to her.

"You have my permission to open these cases, Detective. Call on Hendricks if you and your boys need help."

"Yes sir." Rogers stood, and accepted the files.

"Keep me informed and good work, Detective."

Rogers nodded and turned away. She exited the office and made her way back to her desk. Setting the folders on the edge she stood in front of the murder board again.

Castle. Beckett. Esposito. Ryan. Parish. Gates. Montgomery.

It wasn't going to take long for word to get out that she was still alive. Her father might have been successful in faking her death, but the group that had Johanna Beckett murdered were powerful. They might have known the whole time that she was never dead; just waiting for the right moment.

If Rogers played the cards right, she was going to be able to bring down the house of cards that ruined their lives. That ruined her life. Rogers turned and added a picture of under each name on the board.

People were counting on her. Each of these people deserved closure. Rogers touched each picture, remembering, her hand other around the locket and flash drive that she wore around her neck.

She was going to make them pay.

Fifteen years ago…

Alexis Castle stole away upsides as her father moped around his office. She didn't want him to see what was in her hands. If he did, she was afraid as to what would happen. Why had Captain Montgomery sent her a package? Why did he entrust a seventeen year old girl with this package?

Alexis closed and locked her bedroom door. There that would keep her father and Gram out. The teenage sat the manila package down on her bed.

It looked normal.

It felt normal.

By reaching for the clasp, Alexis Castle's life was changed for forever.

_Good? Bad? So-So? _


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Not mine_

Chapter 2

Detective Al Rogers pushed her pencil straight strawberry blond locks out of her face. It was still strange, after all these years to see it. It still wasn't her normal red.

"What do you have, Rob?" Al asked the short, handsome ME.

The man grinned at her. He had been trying to get into her pants for years. He stilled hadn't been able to reach his goal.

"Dr. Lanie Williams, 45, has about twenty or so stab wounds in her. But the one that ended her life was the one to her liver." Rob folded back the body's covering.

Al had to make sure that her reaction wasn't visible.

Apparently her poker wasn't as good as she thought it was.

Dr. Parish had been murdered in a similar fashion as Johnna Beckett.

Message sent; Received; understood.

The detective scanned the form ME's body; she was whole, besides the couple dozen holes in her. Al made a mental note to make sure that Lanie's stash was still there.

"Detective? Rogers? Al?"

"Sorry." Al brought her eyes to Rob's face. "Anything else I should know?"

Rob picked up a slip of paper. "I found this is her pocket;" He held out the slip of paper to her. She recognized the numbers.

It was Javier Esposito's phone number and her father's cell block number.

Thank you Lanie.

Esposito and her father were next on their list.

Al paused and said a little pray for her friend, trying to pull herself together.

"Call if you find anything else, Robbie." She moved and touched his arm before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Keep it together, Detective.

"Call if you wanna go on a date or something!"

Al grinned and as she exited the room. She put a little extra swing in her hips just for him. Rob always made her smile; no matter what mood she was in.

As soon as Al hit the street, she paused.

She hadn't expected the emotions seeing Lanie had crashed over her. To see anyone from her past...Al brushed a flyaway piece of hair out of her face. Hell, for years she thought that Beckett or her father was going to end up on a slab. Or Ryan or Esposito.

Not Lanie.

The detective closed her eyes and took a deep breath; the shit was going to hit the face so enough. Al touched the locket and flash drive around her neck.

They made their move.

Now she needed to make hers.

Eyes opened, Al reached for her phone and dialed Patterson before she could change her mind. The detective answered after the first ring.

"You could had told us that she was a former cop."

Al rolled her eyes.

"What did she manage to break?"

"Hank has a black eye. Tried to break his arm but I broke it up before she could do any real damage." Patterson reported. "I'm surprised that she managed to do what she did from where we pulled out of."

Al found herself nodding and clucking to herself. "Doesn't surprise me any. Has she said anything?" She started moving down the busy sidewalk. After all that she had gone through, Al couldn't leave New York.

Patterson's voice brought her back to earth. "She freaked out when we told her past the 'board. Took three uni's and Edwards's help to get her under control."

"You guys got off lucky. Last time that I drug her out of that bar, I ended up with a broken nose and lots and lots of bruises." Al told him as she crossed the street. She had parked a few blocks away.

"Last time? Rogers," The man's deep voice was confused in her ear. "Are you holding out on me?"

"Not for long-You and Willis will be read in as soon as you guys start the paperwork to get an inmate to the station." Al paused to fish her keys out of her pocket. She recognized Willis's voice in the background. "He's milking it isn't he?"

"Okay-we'll get started. Can I shoot him?"

Al shook her head. "No. You really wanna explain that to the Captain?"

"Come on-"

"Good-bye, Detective." Al snapped her phone closed and pocketed it as she stopped in front of her vehicle. She unlocked it and got inside as her phone went off.

She fished it out and answered.

"Rogers."

"I was ever so surprised to get a phone call from Aaron Edwards. Said that he wanted to talk to me about the Castle case."

"Hello to you too, Gates. How have you been?"

"Around. Heard you made chief a few years back."

The older woman coughed. "You've been busy yourself, Alexis. Now, why did Aaron feel the need to call me?" She was never one to beat around the bush.

Al's breath hitched. She tried to will the emotions away but failed. "They got Lanie."

Gates didn't waste anytime. "I'll be at the 6th in about an hour, Kiddo. Where's everyone else?"

"I already managed to drag Beckett out. Working on my father. Still don't have a clue about Ryan and Esposito." Al answered. She took a deep breath forcing her emotions away. She could do this.

"You knew this day was going to come-"

The detective touched the locket and flash drive. She knew that better then anyone.

"I know."

"Then let's go to work."

* * *

><p>Alexis Castle stared at the papers that were spread out on her childhood bed. Pictures of her father, Detective Beckett, and Johanna Beckett stare back at her. Several documents were included with the pictures.<p>

The teenager glanced down at the letter in her hands.

What had the Captain been thinking but seeing her...this?

Alexis looked away.

It was everything that Detective Beckett needed to finally solve her mother case. And more.

So much more.

Alexis glanced down at the letter in her hands.

It was from him.

From Roy.

Taking a deep breath, she set it aside. Alexis needed to get her head on straight.

Why did he pick a seventeen year old?

* * *

><p><em>Any better?<em>


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